‘It’s the playoffs, everyone plays through injuries,’ says Couture of heroics that gave Sharks a 2-1 OT win

SAN JOSE – No shortage of follow-up material after Sharks’ dramatic 2-1 OT victory over the Los Angeles Kings in Game 3.

Health issues first:

Logan Couture walked around the locker room in a pair of workout shorts that showed a slight swelling on his left knee. No limp, no obvious sign of what he went through and no attempt to hide anything. He said he feels good. No reason to think he won’t be out there Tuesday night.

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Marty Havlat. Not so much. We didn’t see Marty today, but Todd McLellan removed any uncertainty by saying Havlat would not play Tuesday night and that it’s a lower body injury. So was McLellan frustrated that Havlat told him he was good to go, then didn’t make it out of the first period?

“If you’re hurt and you can’t play, you can’t play,” the coach said. “You can be as frustrated as you want because we had to juggle the lineup, but we talked about the difference between being injured and hurt. He’s injured.”

That distinction was one McLellan made earlier when talking about Couture.

“I think there’s a difference between being injured and hurt. You look at a Kopitar, you look at a Logan, they were hurt in those games and they know how much they mean to their team and they find a way to come back and it gives their team a boost,” McLellan said.

“Logan has been able to do that throughout his career. Knock on wood. An injury is a different scenario for any type of athlete. When you’re injured, you’re injured and you can’t play. There’s a lot of heroes who have played different sports hurt. Two of the leaders on both of the teams did that in back-to-back games in the series.”

****The print edition story for Monday’s paper focuses on Couture leaving the game, returning and nailing the OT goal that makes this a series and not hopeless for the Sharks.

It’s online now at http://www.mercurynews.com/sharks/ci_23278816/sharks-logan-couture-matter-fact-about-overtime-goal?source=autofeed#

But, per usual, there was more material than you’ll find in that story on the topic. Like some of the following:

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More lightheartedly than anything else, I asked if, as a boy growing up in Ontario, he was familiar with the legend of Toronto Maple Leaf defenseman who played with a broken leg in the 1964 Stanley Cup finals and scored an overtime game-winner. The next game, Toronto won the cup.

“You hear the story,” Couture responded. “It’s not like that.”
But is that part of your background, what you bring to a Stanley Cup game?

“It’s playoffs. Everyone plays through injuries. The four years I’ve been here, I seen guys play through a lot of injuries. Stanley Cup is what you’re playing for. Whatever it takes.”

So specifically, who played through those injuries?

“Two years ago Clowie and Jumbo couldn’t even put their own jerseys on in the playoffs. They had guys putting their jerseys on for them, their shoulders were so bad. Stuff like that. Just guys playing through a lot of things.”

Lost somewhat in the aftermath of the Game 2 heartbreaker was the fact Couture had a chance to clear the puck out of the defensive zone when the Sharks were down two men. But his childhood buddy, Drew Doughty, knocked the puck down and seconds later that Sharks were tied and on their way to a loss.

Did that game-winner more than equal things out in the cosmic sense?

“I don’t think about it like that,” Couture said. “I just think about it as different games, different plays. I made a play in Game 2 that I shouldn’t have made. I should have got the puck out. I didn’t. Nothing I can change about that now. So move forward and scored in Game 3.”

Much is also being made how this is Couture’s coming out as a playoff star, about how the rest of the NHL is discovering the impact he has. Which gets to the question of the Sharks evolving into Couture’s team. We’ve looked at the topic here and in the Merc, but it keeps coming up over the past three weeks.

From the outside looking in, Couture shows more fire at times than Joe Thornton or Patrick Marleau display to the public. In a sense, it seems as if the entire team is now starting to reflect Couture’s personality rather than theirs. But Couture wasn’t buying that.

“Joe, if you see him during a game, on the bench in the room, he shows a lot of fire. On the outside, he’s joking, he’s fun. He’s got a different personality with you guys than he does around us. There’s a lot of fire in him. He wants to win really badly,” Couture said.

“We also have guys like Pav who show a ton of fire. Patty as well. Just everyone does it in their different ways. Not every single person in this room does it the same way.”

****We also were asking players for their reaction when Couture came back into the game, how the crowd cheered and whether the bench similarly was celebrating.

“I knew he was gone after a while, but when he came back on I thought there was something funny on the Jumbotron or something,” Brent Burns said, noting the response Kopitar got in the Staples Center as well. “You feel the energy of the building get bigger. They fed off of that, and I think we fed off of it too in our building. I just didn’t know if it was the kiss cam with Logan coming back.”

David Pollak

David Pollak has been following the NHL forever and at the Mercury News as an editor or reporter since 1987. For almost a decade he wrote about the Sharks as the paper's Fan in the Stands before joining the sports department in 2001. He became the Sharks beat writer before the 2007-08 season and began this blog at that time. You can also follow him on Twitter at @PollakOnSharks.

BSB@48 — wasn’t trying to imply that Stuart was part of the deal, just that Stuart’s cap hit is about the difference between what Heatley and Havlat’s cap hit is. Which means that cap hit difference allows us to have 1 more ‘Brad Stuart level’ player on our team.

Given DW and the proverbial ‘window’, I’m pretty sure he wanted the cap space in the near term and was willing to risk the added cap hit for Havlat in the out years of the Havlat’s deal. Turns out, the amnesty will likely bail DW out. Of course, DW may have known that an amnesty clause was a distinct possibility when he made the deal …

VIN

.47 BuddyElf (no, that’s not a nerd name)

This character posted about 12 times this morning. Most of it was hard to make out. Do you know this language he speaks?

But I can tell you one thing, this guy won’t be filing any patents anytime soon!

-And bt-dubs, nice try on the bandwagon comment 😉

Planet

I thought we traded for Havlat for speed, since we gave up Seto prior for the Brett Burns deal, and since Heater skates worse than I do…

Stevo

Off of the King’s blog:

“This team makes me crazy. Quick is in full meltdown mode, Stoll is out for the series, Sutter can’t find a way to get the Richards line past the Thornton line, Couture is indestructible and killing us and Kopitar’s line. The Kings were flat out lucky to win the first two games. I’m not sure, now that San Jose is back in this thing, that we can get past them.

Where’s Carter? Kopitar? Our “Captain” is getting manhandled by a Pickle!! If we come back to LA tied up 2-2, there’s no way we take the series. No way.

What a mess this team has become. Sheesh.

Fire Darry Sutter before he tortures next season too.”

Planet

and since I love to bring up the Logan Coture versus Patty Marleau debate, here is Joe Thornton’s take:

“You see a guy like Logan coming in just at training camp that first time, and, all of a sudden, now he’s, I think, probably the most complete hockey player there is in the NHL today

Anyone still think that PM is a “more complete hockey player” than LC???

Admit it; It’s Logan’s planet… the rest of us are just taking up space…

Sharkfan91

The Edmonton press speaks up for Doug Wilson on his well written letter:

I remember arguing here last season that Couture was our MVP, and the season before that that he was the future leader of this team, and the season before (when he first started getting call ups) that he was going to be San Jose’s first legitimate homegrown superstar.

Bam.

Better Stat Bill

Zeke – Ah, okay, misunderstood re: Stuart. I don’t know that Wilson had much more specific foresight at the time than ‘it will be nice to have more cap space,’ though.

On the topic of cap space, one thing that often gets overlooked in the benefit the team reaped from dealing Murray, Clowe, and Handzus was how much cap space that freed up (while making us a better team).

2Teal4You

Bt-dubs? I think VIN is from the hood, which is 75% of LA. Don’t feed the troll BE, buy the cream.

Phat Stat Phil

Bill @ 38

First off, I don’t call myself “Phat Stat”. Someone else dubbed me that jocularly and I decided to own it. I didn’t really anticipate that it would cause someone to feel inferior and invent a moniker for their own aggrandizement.

Secondly, you completely ignored what I said about redundancy. If you’re not going to bother addressing the things I’m writing, then I’ll just start ignoring you. My ego doesn’t depend on how others perceive me here. I’m here because I like discussing hockey. If that discussion stops being a dialogue, then I see little point in wasting my time and effort.

Thirdly, the numbers — on their own — show puck possession.

Now, you can argue — as I think you’re trying to? — that they need to be compared with QoC. In this case, it’s actually reasonable to ignore that point because I was comparing Havlat with Heatley and they have faced similar QoC, owing to similar usage. I’m forced to guess blindly since you’re offering precious little verbiage in the way of your critique, preferring instead to focus on the name field I have on my comments.

Anyway, someone on here suggested that I posted too many numbers, so I try to make concise statements when I can. Perhaps I’m expecting too much for you to fill in those blanks yourself rather than making vague criticisms.

ZEKE @ 44

Given the work done with Heatley to try and make him into a two-way player, it wasn’t too hard to read between the lines. We were unlikely to ever get the sort of defensive improvement that we saw in Thornton from Heatley.

We got Havlat because he was that two-way forward we wanted, had some of that scoring touch, not just because he came in at a more manageable cap. Wilson specifically commented on his speed and ability to play at “big moments” when he announced the trade.

Now if only Wilson had gotten some duct tape out of the trade to keep Marty Havlat together…

The Real Teal

I’d say Nabokov was also a legitimate homegrown superstar. I watched ‘John’ play on the Thoroughblades completely by accident.

Johnny San Jose

Quick was (really) upset after the first goal by Boyle as Thornton backed into the crease, elbowed Quick in the head and the puck flew past him. I’m sure he was complaining about being “crowded” after the OT winner throughout the game.

Planet re: Couture vs. Marleau. They are both excellent players and we’re lucky to have both of them on our team. Personally, I think Logan is trying to mirror his game after Marleau in that he plays solid in all three zones, PP and PK.

When Marleau was Couture’s age, it was the same thing. A bright, home-grown boy playing at an accelerated level.

I truly think that the locker room got contaminated with some people not putting in a “full-effort” and it became contagious to Marleau. He realized that he could succeed at 75% on some nights and save his body some wear and tear. I also think that some of the new guys, i.e. Burrish, Torres, Stuart and Hannan came in with a more direct attitude and we’re seeing the results. Marleau has had a fantastic playoffs so far and Couture is doing very well too. Things are looking good for those two at this point…

BuddyElf

Stevo: Yah, the new nasty itch is lame… it’s obvious he’s a bandwagon fan… he wasn’t around here 2 years ago when the Kings played the Sharks in the first round, so he’s become a fan since at least 2 years ago, mostly likely about a year ago. He’ll be gone soon enough.

I ignored it because it was a little silly. Him being hurt so often contributes to his low contribution. Barring a series of assumptions, it is not the reason for it.

“Thirdly, the numbers — on their own — show puck possession.”

Sort of, yes (it is a proxy used to try and measure puck possession, saying is ‘shows’ puck possession isn’t precisely correct), but it is still meaningless the way you are using it.

“Now, you can argue — as I think you’re trying to? — that they need to be compared with QoC.”

Nope. What Havlat’s corsi number needs to be compared with is the corsi of everyone else on his team. Just like +/- (well, not just like, since +/- is a terrible statistic and corsi is actually useful, but along the same lines), a player’s individual corsi is affected by the team around him. So to draw any useful information out of one player’s individual corsi rating, you would need to look at the team and see how he compares. You can say Havlat’s corsi is +42, and that’s great. But if that happens to be the worst corsi on the team, it’s actually not that great, at all. Do you see the problem, yet?

“Anyway, someone on here suggested that I posted too many numbers, so I try to make concise statements when I can. Perhaps I’m expecting too much for you to fill in those blanks yourself rather than making vague criticisms.”

Actually, it would appear that I was expecting too much from you to be able to figure out how you were incorrectly using the statistic based on my ‘vague’ criticisms (which I don’t think they were, in any case, as I explicitly said it’s useless to analyze an individual player’s isolated corsi number) . Of course, I would have expected someone ‘owning’ that username to have used it correctly in the first place, without any need for vague or specific criticism on my part.

Better Stat Bill

PS: And I’m not even saying that Havlat’s advanced stats aren’t good (they’re not bad). It’s just the way you’re trying to look at them, they’re not really going to tell you a damned thing.

This is sort of like when you tried to show that losing Torres made the Coyotes better by interpreting his time away from the goalie as being off the team (rather than on the bench between shifts, which is what it mostly was), and without looking at similar differences among his teammates to compare, and without considering linemates or strength of opposition. Not to spend more time focusing on your username, but maybe ‘Phwoops Stat Phil’? 😉

Better Stat Bill

“Personally, I think Logan is trying to mirror his game after Marleau in that he plays solid in all three zones, PP and PK.”

Give me a break. Couture was playing that game in the O and in the A and continued it when he came into the league. He’s just gotten better at it, just like he’s gotten better at everything else he does on the ice. Comparing him to Marleau is…offensive.

Johnny San Jose

Better Stat Bill — You seem to be on quite a roll so I’ll stay out of your way. The stats that Marleau has shouldn’t be ignored, especially by a “statistician” as yourself. For Couture being around one of the best two-way players in the league seems logical that it would accelerate the learning curve in my opinion.

I hope the smiley face is you being sarcastic.

Better Stat Bill

I was being sarcastic about the comparison being offensive, yes. Haha. Feel free to think of me as BS Bill. 😉

But I don’t agree that Couture has patterned his game after Marleau’s. I think that, as you suggest, having Marleau there assists Couture’s development and reduces the ‘learning curve,’ but Couture and Marleau are very different players who have very different skillsets. Couture is never going to have Marleau’s speed (conversely, Marleau is never going to have Couture’s brains), so the way he plays the game – whether it’s offense or defense – is never going to be the way Marleay plays the game. I think the better rolemodel for Couture is probably Pavelski, who I’d argue is not only a better two-way forward than Marleau, but whose skillset much more closely resembles Couture’s than does Marleau’s.

Stevo

WTC’s new database interpretation wars… Cool!

Hard to find geeked-out hockey talk like this anywhere else on the Web, eh?

Better Stat Bill

No, I’d say finding hockey talk like this anywhere else on the web is a statistical certainty.

Phat Stat Phil

Bill @ 66

It’s not “a bit silly”. It’s an important distinction. Matt Pelech didn’t contribute much. He was not injured.

Havlat does contribute when healthy. He is often injured.

When you say that someone “Always injured” and “seldom contributing” in the same sentence, you are implying both injured and not contributing — especially given that you can’t have a meaningful influence on a game that you aren’t in. It is strictly false to say that Havlat doesn’t contribute when he is healthy. Hence my statement — and my comment. Has that gotten through or are you just going to brush over this as “silly” again?

It’s a little odd that when I implied you meant QoC, you replied “Nope” and then proceeded to describe what QoC tracks loosely — a comparison between other players.

But again, given that I was discussing replacement, QoC is entirely irrelevant.

But — while I’m at it — can you show an example where a relative Corsi of, say, +30 isn’t good?

Finally, your suggestion that Corsi “sort of, yes” tracks puck possession is ridiculous. Implying that Corsi is something which accidentally happens to show puck possession is silly because Corsi is a proper subset of puck possession statistics. You cannot shoot the puck without having the puck. Every instance of shooting the puck means that you have the puck on your stick — even if you’re discussing shots on goal by a goalie.

It is not a “proxy”, it *is* a puck possession stat.

Better Stat Bill

PSP: It IS a silly. Sorry, Phil. Havlat’s overall contribution to the team doesn’t care how many games he’s been healthy or not. So, hypothetically, even if he contributes when he’s healthy, because he doesn’t contribute at all when he’s not, he ends up seldom contributing. Anyway…

“It’s a little odd that when I implied you meant QoC, you replied “Nope” and then proceeded to describe what QoC tracks loosely — a comparison between other players.”

The only thing a little odd here is that you appear to be confusing corsi Quality of Competition, which you implied, with the corsi of the player’s own teammates, which is what I suggested. These two stats are, well, ‘opposites’ wouldn’t be quite correct, but let’s say they don’t really have anything to do with one another.

“But — while I’m at it — can you show an example where a relative Corsi of, say, +30 isn’t good?”

First of all, that’s the first time you actually specified *relative* Corsi, which is an improvement. Second, unfortunately it’s still not great, because without knowing the relative Corsi of everyone else on the team, you can’t judge just how good that is. Hypothetically, on a team full of superstars, a scrub could have a relative Corsi of +30 due to strength of both team and linemates. And in your analysis it would be great…until you looked at the rest of the players and discovered that everyone else ranged from +40-50 and he was an outlier who actually made his teammates a little worse when he was on the ice. Third, let me know what site you’re getting Havlat’s corsi number from (every site seems to come up with different ratings) and I’ll see if I can find a more realistic example when I have a chance.

Ah, there again, you are wrong. Corsi doesn’t track puck possession, it tracks shots directed on net differential, which as it turns out correlates pretty well to all sorts of things – possession time, scoring, winning. Hence it is a proxy. If it was an actual measurement, as you suggested, it would be presented as time. But don’t take my word for it – what does BtN say? “The core of advanced hockey analysis is shot differential statistics, the best-known of which is “Corsi,” …Among the statistics that are currently collected by the NHL, this is the single-best predictor we have of future team winning percentage. Studies from past seasons or single games have also shown that It’s also a proxy for things like scoring chances, puck possession and zone time.”

Ahem. It is a proxy stat because it does not track possession time directly. If it did, it would always be correct. It instead gives you a rough idea of possession based on how many shots a team managed to direct on net in a given interval, but it is not necessarily perfect. A team can put a lot of shots on net without dominating puck possession. It’d be an exception, not the rule, but it could happen. Conversely, St Louis is a better possession team than their corsi numbers – which are already pretty good – might suggest, they just don’t have enough good shooters (or shooters period) to tilt the differential further in their favor. If corsi was what you describe it to be, you wouldn’t run into these discrepancies. Possession time would be possession time. I mean jesus christ.

DieHardShark (DHS)

kinda off topic but whenever i feel my blood boil with negativity about a sharks player or how bad i think we have it i always turn to this to make me
SMILE LOL FALL ON THE GROUND…..and its the main reason i think Mike Milbury is a joke….